Rantings and Ravings

We have our first recycling box in Price. It is for paper and aluminum to start. The bin is located in the Sutherland's parking lot.

This has come about due to the efforts of a small and dedicated group of people who have seen the need and refused to give up no matter what obstacles they have encountered along the way.

I am embarrassed that I am not one of those people. I talk the talk, but in this effort I did not walk the walk. I have been "busy" some of the time they are meeting and keep thinking I will make the effort, but I have not. Shame on me.

I do get E-mails about the meetings and the progress of the group's efforts on a regular basis. I thank Jeanne McEvoy for keeping us informed even when we haven't even made one meeting. She is the Price City Councilwoman who is very visible in this effort, but I can pretty much guess she would be the last to take credit for the work the group has done.

Even if you are not a tree-hugging, environmentalist, you should be excited about the fact we have a recycling place now. It will save the city and county a lot of money if people embrace it.

How will it save?

Well the less we throw away, the less ends up in the ECDC site. It has cost more each year to dump what we produce in garbage in our city every year.

A few years back ECDC lost a couple of lucrative contracts from other areas and could no longer provide services for us at the same low cost they had. It is the nature of business and economic realities.

For years, friends and family have come to visit from other states and areas and have been shocked when they look for our recycling bin before they throw away a can. We don't drink much pop at our house so we haven't tried to save them. I have heard a few times that there were places to take them, but for the little we generate, it was not something we made a priority of.

As a kid I recycled a lot. Pop bottles were valuable. They were worth 10 cents each and it didn't take long to find enough to make it worth your while.

My brother and I would scour the ditches and road ways to make enough money to supplement our allowances. I collected aluminum cans in the early 80s to buy a tricycle for my daughter's birthday when I was broke. Then aluminum price tanked and it was hard to find a place that accepted cans anymore.

We even had a paper recycling bin here at one time. It became a real mess when it didn't get emptied enough. People often just left paper outside of it and the wind created havoc.

It seemed like we were just not in an area where any one saw the economic feasibility of recycling.

But then we got a group of people that knew no matter what we needed to get back onto the recycling track and formed a group to find the way to get it done. This small core of individuals has grown and the roadblocks addressed.

I hope our residents here embrace this new opportunity and demand more. Thanks, Green Team. Keep up the good work.